UN Council shies away from oil sanctions on Sudan

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 5 (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday focused on African Union troops as a way out of the Darfur crisis, ignoring its earlier threat of oil sanctions against Sudan for atrocities against civilians.

U.S. Ambassador John Danforth, the most critical envoy of Khartoum on the council, said it was important to get as many African troops as possible in Darfur.

The council last month had threatened sanctions if Sudan did not take action to protect civilians. But Danforth told reporters, “I think right now we have to keep our eye on the ball,” adding: “The focus now is on the African Union.

Danforth spoke after the 15-member council was briefed by Jan Pronk, the special U.N. envoy in Sudan, who drafted a report issued late on Monday under U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s name.

Pronk told the council in an open briefing that the Sudanese government had not improved security for African civilians in Darfur or prosecuted perpetrators of atrocities as the council had demanded.

He said the cease-fire between between rebels and the government was broken constantly but that militia, allied with the government, caused most of the civilian deaths in early September.

“Towards the end of the month militia attacks became less frequent,” he said. “In the same period, however, armed banditry rose at an alarming rate, endangering both the local population and aid convoys.”

Rebels began an uprising in Darfur in February 2003 after years of skirmishes between mainly African farmers and Arab nomads over land and water in an area as large as France.

ARAB MILITIA

The government turned to the Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, to help suppress the rebels. Many African villagers were killed, raped and robbed. Some 1.4 million people have been uprooted from their homes and 50,000 have died,

Sudan’s ambassador, Elfatih Erwa, told reporters his country had agreed to let in about 3,500 African Union troops, police and observers, whose very presence is to prevent further abuses.

He also wondered if the United States was serious about labeling the crisis genocide, saying that would force them to send in troops rather than use the Darfur conflict “for political reasons.”

Pronk called for a political solution in Sudan, especially in the separate crisis in the south where Khartoum has promised a peace pact for years to end the 21-year-old civil war. Pronk and Danforth believe a deal in the south would serve as a blueprint for Darfur.

In Annan’s report on Darfur as well as Pronk’s presentation, the United Nations said Sudan had not gone back on any earlier commitments but did not say what they were.

However, Annan’s report said the government made no further progress in September in stopping attacks on civilians, disarming militias, and prosecuting perpetrators of abuse.

“Today, still increasing numbers of the population of Darfur are exposed, without any protection from the government, to hunger, fear and violence,” Annan said. “It goes without saying that implementing Security Council resolutions is obligatory.”

On humanitarian aid, the U.N. report said the situation had deteriorated since the end of August because more and more people were affected by the fighting.

Earlier fears that the number of people touched by the conflict could reach two million “are close to being realized,” requiring aid groups to feed and shelter more people than they helped in August, it said.